33. Enemy Mine (1985): 6.2 - This mediocre movie is a sci-fi take on the enemies becomes friends plot: a human and his alien opponent get stranded together on a planet. The sfx are very dated and cheap looking, which is most clear at the beginning of the movie. But because most of it's just the two character at a handful location this hinders less throughout the remaining of it. Dennis Quaid overacts the entire picture. It also doesn't help that his character is irritatingly arrogant, but of course this is necessary for the character to undergo the necessary character growth. Louis Gossett Jr. does a lot better beneath all the make-up and mask. The last half hour (or something)

And that's it for me. thanks for your stellar hosting as always, Maxwell. I was shooting for 100 but didn't quite make it so a big to those who did (flavo, jeroeno & jd) & a stratospheric to albajos for breaking 200. You cats are gone, man, gone!

1. Game of Thrones (1.1)
2. Game of Thrones (1.2)
3. Game of Thrones (1.3)
4. Game of Thrones (1.4)
5. Game of Thrones (1.5)
6. Game of Thrones (1.6)
7. Game of Thrones (1.7)
8. Anna and the Apocalypse (2017)
9. Game of Thrones (1.8)
10. Game of Thrones (1.9)
11. Game of Thrones (1.10)
12. X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes (1963)

166. Black Mirror: Playtest (2016)
I liked this one with a Black Mirror deviating more into straight up horror than usual.

167. Terminator Genisys (2015)
Geez, this was a mess. Highly derivative of Terminator 2 but nowhere near as good with a new bundle of plot holes and time travel inconsistencies to wrangle with.

168. The Fourth Kind (2009)
Hokey supposedly true story alien abduction case that just seems to offer easy outs of extraterrestrial kidnappings instead of facing the uncomfortable reality of what is most likely mental instability.

169. Kuruizaki sanda rodo (1980) a.k.a. Crazy Thunder Road
This movie just oozes cool and feels so alive. I dug it a lot.

170. Dr. Strange (1978)
Wow this was amazingly bad with a younger, foxier Jessica Walters in a completely wasted role as the evil seductress Morgan Le Fay. The movie spends over half its running time tooling around with this random sub plot of a woman stricken with amnesia by Le Fay. It's TV moie origins are beyond obvious with a very talky script and extremely cheesy, cheap effects.

175b. Father of the Pride Ep 1
175c. Adventure Time S8E1-2
176-178. Father of the Pride Ep. 2-10

And with that I am done, folks! It's been fun and I think this is one of the higher scores I've gotten on a challenge. Which makes albajos' win even more impressive. Thanks maxwelldeux for another great hosting job!

55. 11.22.63: The Truth (2016)
56. Liquid Sky (1982)
I had no plans to watch this this month until OldAle1 posted about it - so I turned it on. And while I largely agree with what he said, I think I might have liked it a bit more. It's weird as hell, but some cool coloring and wardrobe. But here's a recommendation for anyone thinking about watching it: don't watch it sober. The more fucked up you are, the better. Psychadelics recommended.

57. 11.22.63: Happy Birthday, Lee Harvey Oswald (2016)
58. 11.22.63: Soldier Boy (2016)
59. 11.22.63: The Day in Question (2016)
And with that, Wife and I finished the miniseries. This ended up being a good-not-great show. Interesting historical fiction, blending a compelling personal plot with historical facts regarding the JFK assassination. I had a friend in high school who was obsessed with the JFK assassination, so I learned more about it than I ever intended, so this was a fun foray into that. Unfortunately, I think the best part of the series was underwhelming, because

SpoilerShow

he was successful at preventing the JFK assassination. So when he went back to present time, the world was a horrible place, and Kennedy ended up being an awful person. This was in the last half of the last episode, which I found unfortunate because I wanted to explore that world more. But it had a sweet and touching ending, so that was pretty nice.

I had no idea when starting this that it was based on Karel Čapek's play R.U.R , which I read a long, long time ago - reading the synopsis on Wiki it looks like this doesn't have much at all to do with the original work (yes kids, it's not just Hollywood that changes writers' works until they are unrecognizable) which was certainly not a piece of Communist propaganda, as this ends up being. It's somewhat dull in it's first half, with the main drama being the conflict between two brothers, Jim and Jack Ripple - Jim is an inventor who thinks that his robots will ultimately benefit mankind, even if initially they will take away labor jobs - Jack is the head of the labor union. Lots of arguing and fighting, the robots ultimately get built and, this being a Soviet film of the 30s, you can guess which brother ends up being right. The robots are fairly impressive, 3 meters tall or so, and the effects and production design are quality for this period for sure, but on the whole this is a little too didactic and less interesting than most of the other serious SF films from the decade that I've seen from this or other countries.

15-part Columbia serial running just shy of 5 hours, based on the popular TV series - the only serial ever based on a TV series, the second of the company's three sci-fi serials and the only sci-fi serial from the 50s that I've seen that's any good at all - though picking a "good" serial over a "bad" one, particularly in the later era of it's popularity, is in some ways akin to comparing a "so-bad-it's-good" film over one that's merely bad. All serials (all American studio examples that is) are repetitive, juvenile, and cheap, and this certainly shares all those features with the likes of the following year's Radar Men From the Moon which I watched earlier this month. But the acting is just slightly less meretricious, the new inventions that they showcase in every episode are totally silly, some of the ways in which they contrive their ways out of the cliffhangers are nuts, and it's all played dead serious, which makes it all the funnier. And there's a little more variety overall in the chases and action than in some of the worst examples, though I think almost every cliffhanger ends in an explosion. The storyline is essentially the same as Radar Men and half a dozen other SF serials - bad guys from another planet (which you can get to in about 5 minutes apparently) want to conquer earth, with the aid of a traitor scientist (who is OBVIOUSLY a traitor to anyone watching, but who the "brilliant" Captain Video can't believe is a sellout until around episode 10). The main character is only referred to as "Captain VIdeo" and his sidekick as "Ranger" - though there are a bunch of other "video rangers" as well. Deliriously wonderful in it's way, if you can get into serials. Given that mine is only the 2nd check and that most serials I've seen have only a handful of checks, I guess most people find these a bridge too far - and of course very few of them are Official, the final kiss of death.

38. Moon Zero Two (Roy Ward Baker, 1969)

Kind of a loss to explain why this film has such poor ratings - no, it's not any great shakes, but it's a fun and very colorful late 60s adventure much in the same vein as The Green Slime or some of Antonio Margheriti's films like the Gamma Quadrilogy. Oh wait, those aren't that highly regarded either. Oh well, me I just enjoy this kind of thing - space salvage guy James Olson is hired to move an asteroid full of sapphires to the Moon by a super-rich guy - all pretty shady - meanwhile romancing/helping out Catherine Schell, whose brother has been working a mining claim on the far side of the Moon that just so happens to... well you can guess. Cool music and sets, decent if pretty broad acting all around, and a cool animated opening title. It probably ain't art but I thought it was groovy, man.

Users
Through the month of January, we've had 44 (+1) participants in the Sci-Fi/Fantasy Challenge! albajos supernovaed this challenge, finishing with 222 watches. flavo5000 orbited in second with 178 watches. jeroeno and jdidico rounded out the celestial century club, with 117 and 111 watches, respectively. 39 people finished in double-digits, and 26 have at least 20.

But let's take a second and review those ridiculous top two scores. If my count is right, we've had 193 official challenges over the years. A score of 178 would have been enough to win all but 7 of them (and 5 of those are horror). In fact, only one other time has there been a score that high without a win - the 2017 Horror Challenge, where flavo5000 finished in 2nd place with 183, while albajos won with 211. Holy hell.

Years
Films watched so far have ranged from 1896 to 2019, covering 119 unique years in film, including every year from 1905-2019. 2018 is the most-watched year with 184 watches, followed by 2017 with 100 watches. 65 years are above 10 watches each. Here's a list of watch count by decade:

Decade

Count

1890

3

1900

13

1910

14

1920

33

1930

41

1940

42

1950

121

1960

165

1970

166

1980

241

1990

186

2000

197

2010

548

Most Common Films Watched
By popular* request, here's a quick look at the films watched by the most people (i.e., at least two). I've removed TV episodes from the list. And due to copy/paste issues, I can't guarantee full accuracy, but it's all for fun, right?

*sol

Film

Count

Aerograd 1935

9

Sorry to Bother You 2018

8

Annihilation 2018

7

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse 2018

6

Solo: A Star Wars Story 2018

6

Solyaris 1972

5

Suspiria 2018

5

Captain America: Civil War 2016

5

Black Mirror: Bandersnatch 2018

5

Bird Box 2018

5

Ready Player One 2018

5

Isle of Dogs 2018

4

The Tunnel 1935

4

The Crow 1994

4

The Brain That Wouldn't Die 1962

4

The Shape of Water 2017

4

Incredibles 2 2018

4

Mandy 2018

4

Liquid Sky 1982

4

Black Panther 2018

4

Mannequin: On the Move 1991

4

Mars Attacks! 1996

4

Paddington 2 2017

3

A matter of life and death 1946

3

The Predator 2018

3

Stalker 1979

3

Upgrade 2018

3

Zacharovannaya Desna 1964

3

The Bed Sitting Room 1969

3

Vinyl 1965

3

The Stone Tape 1972

3

The Story of Three Loves 1953

3

The Zero Theorem 2013

3

The Mummy 1999

3

Tarantula 1955

3

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor 2008

3

Transformers: The Last Knight 2017

3

Phantom from Space 1953

3

Iron Man 2008

3

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them 2016

3

Alice in Wonderland 1966

3

It Came From Outer Space 1953

3

Beauty and the Beast 2017

3

Maze Runner: The Death Cure 2018

3

Die Puppe 1919

3

Invaders from Mars 1953

3

Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne 1969

3

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban 2004

3

Dr. Caligari 1989

3

And the 2-watch filmsShow

Film

Count

Valerie and Her Week of Wonders 1970

2

The Toxic Avenger 1984

2

Kamennyy tsvetok 1946

2

Sheena 1984

2

Mannequin 1987

2

Black Mirror: Nosedive 2016

2

Black Mirror: Arkangel 2017

2

Gulliver's Travels 1939

2

Defending Your Life 1991

2

Black Mirror: Playtest 2016

2

Aquaman 2018

2

Peter Pan 1924

2

Unbreakable 2000

2

300: Rise of an Empire 2014

2

Jubilee 1978

2

Bumblebee 2018

2

Black Mirror: The Waldo Moment 2013

2

Harry and the Hendersons 1987

2

Wavelength 1983

2

Zvyozdny inspektor 1980

2

Heart of a Dog 1988

2

Arrival 2016

2

Pisma myortvogo cheloveka 1986

2

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde 1941

2

Star Trek Beyond 2016

2

Shirley Thompson Versus the Aliens 1972

2

The War Game 1965

2

Silent Running 1972

2

Zhong guo chao ren 1975

2

Sleep Dealer 2008

2

The Terminal Man 1974

2

Rise of the Planet of the Apes 2011

2

The Time Machine 1960

2

Spider-Man: Homecoming 2017

2

Threads 1984

2

Split Second 1992

2

When Worlds Collide 1951

2

Sud pralad 2004

2

Demolition Man 1993

2

Teenagers from Outer Space 1959

2

La belle et la bête 1946

2

The 7th Voyage of Sinbad 1958

2

The Mummy 2017

2

The Abyss 1989

2

I Married a Witch 1942

2

The Beastmaster 1982

2

The Valley of Gwangi 1969

2

The Black Cauldron 1985

2

Thor: The Dark World 2013

2

The Brother from Another Planet 1984

2

Time Bandits 1981

2

The First Purge 2018

2

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets 2017

2

The Handmaid's Tale 1990

2

Yan zhi kou 1987

2

Unknown World 1951

2

The Last Days on Mars 2013

2

Tam, na nevedomykh dorozhkakh... 1983

2

The Man Who Killed Don Quixote 2018

2

Kosmicheskiy reys: Fantasticheskaya novella 1935

2

The Mole People 1956

2

The Wasp Woman 1959

2

The Mummy Returns 2001

2

Anna and the Apocalypse 2017

2

The Phantom Planet 1961

2

The Purge: Election Year 2016

2

Escape from L.A. 1996

2

The Quiet Earth 1985

2

The Return 1980

2

Thor Ragnarok 2017

2

Black Mirror: San Junipero 2016

2

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets 2002

2

Bolshoe kosmicheskoe puteshestvie 1975

2

Chorus 1975

2

How to Talk to Girls at Parties 2017

2

Christopher Robin 2018

2

Black Mirror: White Bear 2013

2

Cinderella 0

2

Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb 2014

2

Conan the Barbarian 1982

2

Holy Motors 2012

2

Death Race 2008

2

Black Mirror: Black Museum 2017

2

Deddo ribusu 2004

2

Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox 2013

2

Der Himmel über Berlin 1987

2

Ant-Man and the Wasp 2018

2

Der schweigende Stern 1960

2

Born in Flames 1983

2

Back to the Future 1985

2

Pandora and the Flying Dutchman 1951

2

Paris qui dort 1924

2

Aelita: Queen of Mars 1924

2

Batoru rowaiaru 2000

2

Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation 2018

2

Quatermass and the Pit 1967

2

Black Mirror: Be Right Back 2013

2

Rampage 2018

2

Black Mirror: Hated in the Nation 2016

2

20 Million Miles to Earth 1957

2

It! The Terror from Beyond Space 1958

2

Evangerion shin gekijôban: Jo 2007

2

Kin-dza-dza ! 1986

2

Ex Machina 2014

2

Luna 1965

2

eXistenZ 1999

2

Blade Runner 1982

2

Beyond the Black Rainbow 2010

2

Mary Poppins returns 2018

2

Faust 2011

2

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children 2016

2

Geostorm 2017

2

Ookami kodomo no Ame to Yuki 2012

2

Ghost in the Shell 2017

2

Avengers: Infinity War 2018

2

A Boy and His Dog 1975

2

Plan 9 From Outer Space 1959

2

Dr. Strange 1978

2

Radius 2017

2

Electronic Labyrinth THX 1138 4EB 1967

2

Ray Meets Helen 2017

2

Enemy Mine 1985

2

Evangerion shin gekijôban: Ha 2009

2

Forbidden Planet 1956

2

Misc. Stats:
Average: 41.16
Median: 31
Mode: 14

Spoiler tag of the week
One of my favorite part of hosting challenges is reading the captions people put on the spoiler tags. This week's winner is Lonewolf2003 for "Fantasizing about science" because I wish more people did that. Congrats!